This one time
by Jasper Christiaansen
Summary: Peter battles inner turmoil, vague amnesia, and unhealthy coping mechanisms until he falls on a girl called Edwyn. Why can't Peter fly? How long will his fairy dust last? Can he keep himself safe and hidden forever from the evils that lurk outside his little world? Only time will tell.


Peter had been writing for hours. His eyes were blurry with exhaustion, his left hand cramping, his once-buzzing mind now humming softly but painfully, as if a thousand tiny bees had woken in protest at the ridiculous amount of time spent in his creative zone.  
Time to stop.  
He checked the clock: 4.58. He checked his windows: locked. Front door: locked. Wardrobe: box still in third drawer. Then he sat on his bed, stared at his wall trying really hard to see the colour white, and checked his brain. But it was no use; he was scarcely any safer in this crumbling ruin of apartment building than he had been out on the streets.  
So he sat back down at his desk and continued on writing.

Morning came and Peter woke up with a start. His neck gave a sharp twinge, alerting him to the fact that he'd fallen asleep, once again, at his desk.  
'Peter...' the brown-haired girl in the corner scolded him, waving a thin, pale finger and a half-hearted frown. 'You need to take better care of yourself...'  
Peter blinked and she disappeared. He sighed as something inside his chest pushed up like a cough, and he frantically lunged out of the chair and into the kitchen, slammed on the kettle, remembered he didn't drink coffee and jumped to the fridge instead where he snatched up a can of Mother. He gulped. His insides settled and he burped.  
"Ohhhh..." he started singing. "Ohhh what a beautiful morrrrrniiiingggggg..." He ran as fast as he could into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

That night Peter decided to go for a stroll. Actually, if told correctly, Peter decided to go for a fly. Because Peter could fly.  
He stood on his window ledge high up in his eleventh-story apartment bedroom and looked out over the city. It was magical. Just like every other night.  
'Well,' thought Peter, his eyes heavy and his brain buzzing again, 'I'd like to make some magic happen tonight.' So he waited until the clock struck midnight, then he spread his arms wide and filled his mind with the only happy thought he had left.

The problem with Edwyn was that she happened to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and this time she was walking alone at midnight down a dark street when a boy thought he would jump out of his window. She lay on the cold pavement, aware of a weight pressing down on her but unable to move. Her head hurt. Something was digging in to her leg and her bottom and she couldn't feel her right hand.  
"Whhhh-" she tried, but her chest felt like it was filled with cement rather than sacs of air. It seemed to take forever for anything to happen at all. The person on top of her didn't appear to be able to move either so they lay for what felt like an age as Edwyn tried to ask the only question she could think of to block out the only thought she could think about.  
Suddenly she could hear what sounded like sobbing. She felt a wetness on both of her ears. Oh. Was she crying?  
"Why doesn't it work?" came a faraway, desperate voice. Edwyn let out her breath in relief and realised she had been holding it in, causing her pain, resulting in tears down her face, and as she breathed out a light came on from above. She thought of heaven.  
"Hello? Hello can you hear me?"  
Edwyn heard someone else crying now. The body on top of hers was twitching in slow movements. She squinted up at the harsh light, at the siren, and she asked: "Why did you want to die?"

Edwyn and Peter shared a hospital ward that night but didn't speak to each other. Edwyn left the next morning with a fractured wrist. Peter left shortly after with a shattered heart and wounded spirit that he had stitched up himself in the only way he knew: tequila. When his mind had quietened down to a fuzzy space of nothing, Peter stood at his window and looked out at the magical city once more. He swayed a little. Words bounced out of his fuzzy space. Words like 'fresh' and 'sweet' and 'soft'. Other words jumped out and rushed at him, venomous and filled with contempt, like 'selfish' and 'betrayal' and 'death'.  
Peter cringed with such force that he almost fell again. He dived down from the window and sped to his wardrobe, grabbed out the box and opened it. Inside sat three inches of bright fairy dust. He didn't want to use this method, he shouldn't have needed to, seeing as he could fly. But the world had gone dark around him and it was his right. He deserved this.  
'You're going about this the wrong way...' came a voice from behind him. Peter pinched some of the fairy dust between his fingers and slammed the box shut, stashed it away safely, dashed to the window and scrambled up. He looked straight ahead.  
'Peter...' the voice tried again. She sounded disappointed. He squeezed his eyes shut. "Straight until morning- what was it again?" He held the dust over his head but couldn't remember his saying. "Something, something with the big hand...?" He felt despair seep all around him, he could feel the darkness and the bitterness as if they were fingers sliding gently over his shoulders, welcoming him back. He felt a sob rise up as he tried to think. "Something about a clock?..." he begged in a high, desperate voice, to no one but the thin air around him and the fading memory behind him.  
The sob broke free out of his throat, Peter let go of the magic fairy dust and thought of the last thing that had truly felt like home.


End file.
